A visitor of any sort was the last thing we could have expected, and the reader can imagine what a surprise and scare the interruption gave us. We leaped to our feet with such haste that several of the benches wore knocked over, and Christopher Burley, who was in the act of sitting down at the time, landed on the floor with a heavy crash. But there was no occasion for alarm—no need to rush frantically for our muskets. The intruder was not an Indian, not an enemy. In the open doorway, framed against the whiteness of the storm, stood a big, bearded man clad in the winter uniform of the Hudson Bay Company.
And the moment I saw him I recognized an old acquaintance—a hunter who had of late years served at Fort Charter.
“Tom Arnold!” I cried gladly, as I hurried forward to greet him.
“By Jupiter, if it ain’t Carew!” he shouted, clasping my hand. Turning round, he called loudly: “Come in, boys, it’s all right!”
At the bidding five more men stamped noisily into the house, shaking the snow from their clothing, and dragging a well-laden sledge behind them.
“I left these chaps outside, not knowing who might be in the fort,” Tom explained; “but when I listened a bit I reckoned it was safe to enter. I heard a couple of voices that sounded kind of familiar. And no mistake either! We’re in luck to find friends and shelter at one stroke. What a snug place you’ve got here!”
A scene of merriment and excitement followed, and hands were clasped all round; for the most of our party and of the new arrivals were acquainted with one another, even Captain Rudstone finding a friend or two.
After a generous glass of wine, Tom Arnold lit his pipe, stretched his feet to the blazing logs, and volunteered explanations, which we had been waiting anxiously to hear. He and his party, it seemed, had left Fort Charter on a hunting trip three days before. On the previous night they had chosen a poor camping-place—it afforded little shelter against the storm, and so, in the morning, they determined to try to reach old Fort Beaver.
“That’s my yarn,” Tom concluded, “and now let’s have yours, Carew. What are you doing in this part of the country, and with a pretty girl in tow?”
As briefly as possible I related all that had happened, from the swift beginning of trouble at Fort Royal to the night when we escaped by the secret passage. Every word of it was new to Tom and his companions, and they listened with breathless interest and dilated eyes, with hoarse exclamations of rage and grief. And when the narrative was finished a gloom fell upon all of us.